The Code of Hammurabi communicates the centuries-old adage of an “eye for an eye.” In 1941, many countries felt the desire for equal retribution against the Axis Powers, including the United States. The Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor not only shocked America, but the surprise assault forced the country’s hand into succumbing to calls to end military neutrality and officially enter World War II. While Uncle Sam quickly ramped up military recruiting, training, manufacturing, and deployments, the country still felt a burning hole that only an operation like Doolittle’s Raid could accomplish.

United States Forced Into World War II

Although World War II began with Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, the United States refrained from entering the war as a combatant for two years, choosing to provide political and economic support to the Allied Powers. As Japan escalated military operations against China, the United States found itself in active peace talks with Axis Powers to avoid American involvement in another world war.

Peace discussions between the United States and Japan reached a climax in November 1941. The United States’ demand for Japanese withdrawal from China caused peace negotiations to collapse, leading Japan to launch an invasion of Southeast Asia alongside a surprise attack against America’s Pacific Fleet at the naval base of Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.

The resulting attack on December 7, 1941, proved catastrophic for the United States. Japanese torpedoes and aerial bombardments destroyed numerous battleships and nearly 200 aircraft, killing over 2,400 uniformed personnel and civilians. Amidst the remaining chaos of treating thousands of casualties and repairing damaged equipment, President Franklin Roosevelt declared the surprise attacks as a day that would live in infamy, calling on Congress to declare war on the Axis Powers. The attack on Pearl Harbor demonstrated that Roosevelt’s efforts to avoid military involvement in the Second World War were in vain, and the American general staff immediately began to plan mobilization and responses to the Japanese attacks.

Preparations for the Raid

Following Pearl Harbor, the United States quickly enlisted thousands of troops, trained units for deployment to North Africa, and prepared naval assets for action in the Pacific. Three months later, many ships damaged at Pearl Harbor were already back in action, but American military leaders were eager to strike the enemy. The United States hoped to attack the Japanese home islands in retribution for the attacks in Hawaii that left thousands dead and dragged the country into war. To accomplish this unlikely feat, Army Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle was tasked with planning a bombing raid against Japanese targets. The experienced aviator handpicked the most talented pilots he knew, many of whom lost close friends at Pearl Harbor.

Doolittle understood that a raid on Japan’s homeland would be inherently high-risk. Without advanced positioning, protection from fighter escorts, or a secure landing zone, the mission likely represented a one-way trip for the pilots daring enough to volunteer. To make the journey, 16 B-25 Mitchell Bombers were equipped with additional fuel cans and stripped of unnecessary weight to allow safe takeoff from American aircraft carriers. Unaccustomed to taking flight with less than 400 feet of runway, Doolittle and his bombing teams practiced hasty take-offs at Eglin Airfield in Florida and honed their skills of guiding flight navigation celestially in the night sky. By April 1942, Doolittle’s raiders were aboard the aircraft carrier USS Hornet, ready to deliver payloads against the Japanese capital of Tokyo and nearby manufacturing hubs.

Carrying Out the Mission

After weeks of intense preparation, the mission was unexpectedly rushed. Incoming harsh weather conditions risked the bombers’ ability to safely take off from the flight deck of the USS Hornet. Consequently, the raiders took off earlier than anticipated, stretching an already limited maximum flight time. The abrupt change risked the Americans running out of fuel over Japan or the island’s surrounding waters. If they were lucky, the aviators would reach Japanese-occupied China, where they would still have to evade enemy search teams. With Lieutenant Colonel Doolittle personally leading the mission, however, the pilots bravely headed towards their targets.

Doolittle and his entourage of Army pilots successfully bombed several key targets in Japan. Industrial centers in Tokyo and Nagoya were damaged, and secondary effects disrupted the port cities of Yokohama, Kobe, and Yokosuka. While the mission had limited material impact, the operation did fruitfully impart psychological impacts on the Japanese. Before the Doolittle Raid, the Japanese government had promised its people that they would be safe from enemy attack, but the mission revealed both real and perceived vulnerabilities in Japanese defenses.

For the Allied Powers, and particularly in the United States, the raid provided a much-needed boost in morale, satisfying the need for revenge for the attacks of Pearl Harbor and illustrating that successfully it was possible to attack Japan directly. However, while an emblematic victory for the United States, the Doolittle Raid was not without sacrifice; the American airmen soon faced death, injury, and captivity following the bombings.

What Happened to Doolittle’s Raiders?

Out of the 16 pilot crews of Doolittle’s Raid, most landed in Japanese-occupied China. Some, including Doolittle himself, were fortunate to be rescued and evacuated to Allied forces by Chinese citizens and resistance groups. After running out of fuel and crash-landing in a desolate region of China, Doolittle’s escape crossed paths with Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, who promptly led Doolittle to safe haven in India. A pair of surviving crew members landed in the Soviet Union, but after a brief internment and lengthy journey home, the pair returned to American soil.

Not all pilot and bomb crews, however, were as fortunate as Doolittle and the other survivors. Several aviators were captured by the Japanese military in China. Some unfortunately perished under harsh conditions by their captors. Three were executed for their part in the raid, and one died from disease amid cruel mistreatments. For their bravery in combat and retribution of Japanese attacks on America, each of the four deceased Army airmen received a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor, the United States’ highest award for heroism in combat. As the operation’s primary strategist and leader in planning, training participants, and executing strikes during the Raid, Doolittle also received the Medal of Honor. For the United States, the sacrifices of Doolittle’s pilots were necessary in achieving desired outcomes in heightening the war effort, but the operation also led to changes in Japanese military responses at land and sea.

Japanese Retaliation and Strategic Shifts

The Doolittle Raid led to significant changes in Japanese military strategies in 1942. In China, the Japanese Army retaliated by launching the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign to hunt down any remaining American flight crews who crash-landed in China along with any Chinese citizens who helped them evade capture. During the offensive, 180,000 Japanese troops corralled thousands of innocent Chinese families, killing the men and sexually assaulting the women. Additionally, the Japanese Imperial Army poisoned the drinking water of several Chinese villages with cholera, typhoid, and dysentery bacteria. In all, an estimated quarter of a million Chinese citizens perished alongside thousands of slain Chinese soldiers.

At sea, Japan sought to decrease the risk of domestic attacks by extending its defensive perimeter. This expanded posture led to the Battle of Midway in June 1942, one of the greatest Allied victories of World War II at sea. During the intense battle in the middle of the Pacific, the United States Navy, commanded by Admiral Chester Nimitz, destroyed four Japanese aircraft carriers and nearly 250 enemy aircraft. The fight represented a significant turn in the tide of the war especially after American troops under the command of General Douglas MacArthur suffered huge losses during the Philippines Campaign.

The Doolittle Raid served as an indirect catalyst for the triumph at Midway, enabling the Americans to seize the initiative in the Pacific Theater. While American officers could not have predicted the war crimes against innocent Chinese citizens that followed the raid, Doolittle’s crews were certainly grateful for their assistance in fleeing an enemy that posed an existential threat to both nations.

Doolittle After the Raid

After leading his namesake raid, Doolittle was promoted to brigadier general and continued contributing to the Allied war effort by commanding some of the Army’s most active aerial units. In North Africa, Doolittle headed the 12th Air Force, where the formation’s air support predicated American landings in Algeria and Morocco via Operation Torch before offering infantry air support in Tunisia. In November 1943, Doolittle took over command of the 15th Air Force, promptly overseeing operations in southern Italy as the Allied Powers gradually gained a foothold in southern Europe.

Doolittle went on to introduce new aerial combat tactics against the German Luftwaffe after taking command of the 8th Air Force in January 1944. Rather than flying in close escorts with bombers, Doolittle allowed his fighters to proactively seek out enemy fighters lying in wait for the bombers. These tactics effectively neutralized German intercepting aircraft and facilitated American dominance of the skies. During one mission in 1944, Operation Big Week, the 8th Air Force and British pilots destroyed nearly 600 enemy aircraft, numerous engine and ball bearing factories, and key transportation routes.

After World War II, Doolittle returned to his civilian career and became an executive at the Shell Oil Company, where he had worked before the war. He remained in the Air Force Reserve, eventually retiring in 1985 with the rank of lieutenant general. Doolittle passed away at the age of 96 in September 1993 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. Doolittle’s wartime accomplishments are matched by few others, and his role in avenging Pearl Harbor will be forever remembered in the United States.

John Laurens was an officer who served in the American Revolution. Although he is largely forgotten today, he was known in his time as one of the war’s bravest soldiers and an advocate for freedom for all.

Wealthy South Carolina Beginnings and European Education

John Laurens was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in the year 1754. As the son of Henry and Eleanor Laurens, he was born into a wealthy, slaveholding family. Laurens received a good education in Europe, where he learned to speak perfect French. By his early twenties, Laurens had married Martha Manning and was in London studying to be a lawyer. However, the outbreak of the American Revolution interrupted his plans.

Battlefield Bravery and Service Under George Washington

John and his father Henry returned to the Thirteen Colonies in 1777, and both of their lives would be linked to the Continental cause. Henry served in the Continental Congress, while John insisted on joining the army. John Laurens strongly supported the Revolution and was ready to give his life for the colonies’ rights. The army was glad to add an educated patriot to their ranks. Laurens was given the rank of lieutenant colonel and assigned as an aide-de-camp to George Washington. He would serve alongside Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette, rounding out a trio of young but brilliant revolutionaries.

Laurens wasted no time in joining the action, as displayed in his first combat at the Battle of Brandywine. The Marquis De Lafayette, who was wounded at the battle, was amazed by Laurens’ lack of fear on the battlefield. He observed that ‘‘It was not his fault that he was not killed or wounded.’’  

Laurens’ incredible courage continued throughout the rest of his military career. He was wounded at the Battle of Germantown, and had his horse bolt from under him at the Battle of Monmouth. None of these incidents did anything to deter him in the slightest. Despite the Continental Army’s lack of success in the early days of the war, Laurens was devoted to its cause and fiercely loyal to his commander, George Washington.

Such loyalty would even see Laurens fight a duel to defend Washington’s name. After the Battle of Monmouth, Washington was at odds with one of his generals, Charles Lee. With both generals accusing the other of incompetence on the battlefield, Lee was soon court-martialed. Though he was given a very light sentence, Lee was enraged by the charges Washington had brought against him, and began to publicly criticize his leadership. Such an action did not sit well with Laurens, who challenged Lee to a duel. Both men agreed, and in December of 1778, Laurens connected with a shot to Lee’s side. Despite both men wanting to continue, Laurens’ second, Alexander Hamilton, insisted that the duel end immediately.

Advocating for Black Regiments and Securing French Aid 

Besides his bravery on the battlefield, Laurens was also known for his strong abolitionist views. In 1778, he began pushing the idea of creating a Black brigade in the American army. Laurens was not simply looking to gain manpower for the Continental Army, but sincerely believed that African-Americans deserved freedom. His vision for the colonies after the war was one of equal rights for all. Despite his efforts, Laurens was unable to create Black military units because of fierce opposition from the slaveholding members of the government.

In 1780, Laurens was briefly captured by the British before being released in a prisoner exchange. After his release, Congress reassigned him to petition the French for arms and finances. Although he did not want to leave the battlefield, he used his excellent French to secure much-needed French support.

Final Battle at Combahee River and Lasting Impact

Returning to the colonies in 1781, Laurens was able to rejoin Washington for the Siege of Yorktown. He personally helped to negotiate the terms of surrender in the decisive battle of the Revolution. Shortly after the victory at Yorktown, Laurens returned to South Carolina to battle the remaining British soldiers in his home colony. On August 27, 1782, Laurens was shot and killed in the Battle of Combahee River. The skirmish included only several hundred soldiers combined on both sides, and was one of the final engagements of the war.

Despite being killed before he could see his country gain its independence, the 29-year-old Laurens left an undeniable mark on history. His belief in liberty for all and determination to fight for it immortalized him in the history of the United States.

The classic beauty of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy sharply contrasts with the overt sexuality of Hollywood blond bombshell Marilyn Monroe, and yet the public remembrance of their styles and beauty, as well as their connection to President John F. Kennedy, is both how and why these two women are recorded in history. Despite having starkly different styles and audiences due to their separate career paths and goals, Kennedy and Monroe illustrated how style and beauty were manipulated in order to portray the “American Dream.”

Kennedy vs. Monroe: Contrasting Icons in American History

No decade fully encapsulates the “American Dream” like the 1950s. A concept first developed by historian James Truslow Adams in his 1931 book, The Epic of America, the “American Dream” was purportedly achievable for everyone, no matter their race, class, or gender. While historical analysis clearly contradicts this view of America, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, the concept helps to explain the romanticized public view and idolization of both Jacqueline Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe.

Monroe and Kennedy represented two different ideals of American femininity in two different decades; their very existence highlights the contradictory nature of being a beloved American icon. The “American Dream” was an all-consuming conceptualization of the burgeoning cultural status of America in the 1950s and 1960s, and dominates both the public perceptions and historical legacies of one of the most culturally significant First Ladies, Jacqueline Kennedy, as well as Hollywood’s beloved “dumb blond,” Marilyn Monroe. The historical and cultural significance and remembrance of both Kennedy and Monroe are examples of revisionist pop culture history; their realities weren’t as ideal as commonly portrayed.

Marilyn Monroe suffered numerous traumas and tragedies in her life; her intelligence and talent were ignored in favor of her appearance. Jacqueline Kennedy similarly suffered many tragedies throughout her life, but unlike Monroe, her hardships seem to be all that Kennedy is remembered for, ignoring her intelligence and status. Both women have had their individuality pushed aside in favor of their cultural relevancy, as well as their relationship with the same man.

Women in the Post-War United States

To fully understand the styles and histories of Kennedy and Monroe, one must first understand the context in which these women existed. For many women, the 1950s and 60s were challenging. After years of aspiring to be the iconic and powerful Rosie the Riveter and playing a key role in the war effort, the expectation to return to their lives as mothers and housewives came as a shock. While Monroe and Kennedy may not have been on the factory frontlines with the average American woman, the two different paths that these women followed were what made them relatable or admirable to the public.

Monroe signed her first studio contract in 1946, just one year after the end of the war. Before being discovered, Monroe led a very similar life to the rest of American women—she was even working in a Radioplane factory when she was discovered. This made her seem more average and relatable to ordinary American women, who could fantasize about being discovered in a very mundane and unglamorous environment as well. Hollywood’s studio system of the 1940s and 1950s cemented Monroe as a Hollywood icon, but this was done by suppressing the actual person behind the persona, Norma Jeane.

Jackie Kennedy went through a similar sort of erasure and is today associated with one of two things by the average person: her role as President John F. Kennedy’s wife or her pink Chanel suit. JFK’s assassination, which must have been one of the worst moments of her life, is what she is the most associated with. While the role of First Lady is naturally subordinate, to further reduce her to simply a tragic, fashionable figure highlights how she is largely seen as an extension of JFK and that era. Before she met JFK, Kennedy was a highly educated and cultured multilinguist. However, like Monroe, her own achievements have been largely ignored; instead, she is widely viewed as a fashionable cultural figure rather than an intellectual in her own right.

Kennedy’s and Monroe’s opposing styles and lifestyles represent two different classes in America and two different versions of what the American Dream could be. Jacqueline Kennedy appeared to the American public as the ideal woman: a classy, family-oriented woman from a respectable WASP background, who both supported and prioritized her husband’s hopes and dreams over her own.

Monroe, despite being adored by the American public, was arguably the antithesis of Kennedy, and the contrast between the two women was furthered by the president’s controversial affair with Monroe in the early 1960s. Monroe didn’t have a privileged upbringing like Kennedy did, and Monroe’s lower-class background and ditsy persona were arguably what popularized her. These wholesome, girlish qualities made Monroe more relatable to the majority of the American public than Kennedy.

However unfair and limiting this may seem to a modern reader, these women represented the two primary aspirations that were presented to America’s post-war women: the doting wife or the sex symbol. Both Kennedy and Monroe were clearly so much more than the one-dimensional figures that they were portrayed as, as were most post-war women, but history does not remember them this way.

The All-American Family

John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier wed on September 12, 1953, and were the model of the perfect All-American nuclear family. The image of JFK as a young, devoted family man was central to his Presidential campaign, arguably to drive attention away from the Kennedy family’s questionable background. Despite his political image, JFK did not have the same respectable family background Bouvier did, with a socialite mother and a stockbroker father. There are countless outlandish rumors regarding the Kennedys, ranging from mafia connections to making their fortune bootlegging during Prohibition. While none have been proven, JFK was nonetheless very different from his presidential predecessors and had to deal with this speculation and gossip. It was Jackie Bouvier’s role to humanize JFK and to prove why he was a strong candidate and a good choice for President. Ultimately, JFK was not only the youngest president to be elected but also the first Catholic.

In many ways, Jackie Bouvier was seen as the perfect counterpart to suppress any worries surrounding JFK. From the very start, she was a beloved American icon. Not only did her pregnancy during JFK’s campaign help cement Kennedy’s image as the very epitome of the American Dream, it also showed JFK in a more positive light. There was no denying that he was a successful and persuasive politician, but having a doting, pregnant wife by his side further helped his image. It also created the appearance of the Kennedys as a power couple, prosperous in politics but also kind and caring towards their children. Furthermore, the fact that Jackie was ordered by her doctors to rest at home but ignored this advice to help with her husband’s election campaign padded her domestic image.

One controversy that arose during the election campaign was Jackie Kennedy’s wardrobe. The Kennedys as the perfect model of the All-American family was contradicted by Jackie’s love for French designers. The matter of her wardrobe and her style both aided and hindered her image. She was frequently praised in magazines for her clothes and was even seen as one of the best-dressed women in the world. At the same time, she was repeatedly criticized for spending what the American public, just decades removed from war-time scarcity, believed to be “too much” money on these clothes—comments that were known to hurt or irritate her.

The fact that she was a former debutante who had attended a coming-out ball was another disadvantage, as it suggested her high-class status and may have made her seem unrelatable. She suffered under press and media scrutiny, feeling that her debutant status was criticized just as much as JFK’s Catholicism.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. was born just a few weeks after JFK won the election in November 1960. This made Jackie the first new mother in the White House since the early 20th century. However, she could not stand the aesthetic of the iconic White House, disappointed in just how antiquated and outdated the decor seemed. The White House is a staple of American political history, but the very significant fact that it had been home to nearly all the American presidents was not lost on Jackie Kennedy. Determined to make the White House more appealing, she took it upon herself to restore the icon. Jackie was aware that it would be easy to portray her renovation of the White House as a frivolous hobby, and so to counteract this misogynistic view, she emphasized that she was not redecorating but restoring the people’s house.

The broadcasting of the White House restoration in 1962 was wholly successful and drew in an audience of 56 million. The show depicted the First Lady as knowledgeable about the arts, culture, and historical preservation.

The Family Man’s Mistress

It has been well documented that JFK engaged in numerous affairs—politics wasn’t the only “other woman” in the Kennedy marriage. Another aspect that made JFK so different when compared to other American presidents, and also may explain why his presidency was so glamourized, was his Hollywood connections. His own brother-in-law, Peter Lawford, was reportedly the first to introduce JFK to Marilyn Monroe. One of the most popular depictions of Marilyn Monroe is as a woman unlucky in love. Well-known for her famous marriages and infamous spats and divorces, Monroe was divorced a total of three times before her untimely death. Her infamous affair with the President did not improve this image.

Monroe’s image could not have been more different than Jackie’s studious and motherly depiction. While Monroe was a talented dramatic and comedic actress, even studying under the famous acting coach Lee Strasburg, what she was known for during the 1950s and 60s was her figure. Monroe quickly became one of the most famous, wanted, and desired young women in Hollywood, appealing to everyone from sports stars to intellectuals.

Monroe’s 1954 marriage to Joe DiMaggio is a telling example of how her sex symbol image affected both her career and personal life. Initially captivated by her beauty and sexuality, DiMaggio grew to resent her for those very same things towards the end of their marriage. Monroe and DiMaggio were known for their turbulent relationship, with Monroe’s career and image one of the main causes of friction. Like many men in the 1950s, DiMaggio wanted Monroe at home, to be a wife and eventually a mother. However, this was not compatible with Monroe’s Hollywood image.

One of Marilyn Monroe’s most well-known and famous films, The Seven Year Itch, was ultimately the catalyst for the end of their marriage. DiMaggio was reportedly furious over the iconic subway grate scene in the film. Fans, paparazzi, and the film crew were present for this scene, and their cheering and applauding only further angered DiMaggio. The next day, Monroe came to set with bruises on her arm, and while there is no proof that DiMaggio physically hurt her, when she filed for divorce, “mental cruelty” was cited as the reason.

The date of JFK and Monroe’s first meeting is unknown; some think it was at the 1957 Waldorf-Astoria ball, while others say it was at a dinner party in Santa Monica in 1961. The only recorded event that gives any weight to rumors of their relationship came on May 19, 1962, at the President’s birthday fundraiser. Monroe sang a now-famous sultry, seductive, and personalized version of “Happy Birthday,” performed in a tight, sheer dress. For many, this was proof enough.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe had different public images and perceptions, but this isn’t to suggest that they were vastly different people. Both were far more than these public personas but were reduced to sexist stereotypes. Monroe suffered from agonizing endometriosis her whole life, affecting her career and her personal life, leading to multiple miscarriages. Jackie Kennedy has been described as a “reluctant” First Lady who lived her whole life in her husband’s shadow.

Time, however, has helped reveal their true stories and allowed the public to view them as the true individuals they always were. After JFK’s death in 1963 and her second husband’s death in 1975, Jackie worked as a successful editor until her own passing in 1994. Famous American journalist Gloria Steinem once reflected on the public memory of Jackie and the shock of her pursuing a career in publishing, something neither of her husbands had worked in, and applauded her for her independence.

Monroe has also been given this second chance; she is now seen as a victim of both circumstances and the times and is remembered fondly as a fantastic comedic actress and an early feminist. While JFK may have linked these two women together, he was only a small part of their vast lives.

The concept of a citizen militia predates the formation of the thirteen British Colonies in the New World by centuries. However, the role of the citizen soldier evolved significantly on the western frontier of the Thirteen Colonies. A shift towards irregular warfare tactics, the adoption of new weapons, and changes to enlistment terms transformed how the Colonies structured their militias. These shifts eventually evolved into the framework that was adopted by the Continental Congress during and after its struggle for independence from Britain.

Raising the Fyrd

Centuries before British settlers settled in the New World, the kings of Anglo-Saxon England raised the Fyrd in response to threats of invasion. Service in the Fyrd was a legal obligation tied to land ownership, in which the amount of land owned dictated how many men the owner was obligated to contribute to the defense of the realm. This system eventually evolved into what became known as the militia system.

The efficacy of this as a means of national defense was called into question, as kings realized that a more effective way to ensure their security was to create a professional fighting force in the form of a standing army. This development set the stage for heated debates around the loss of individual liberties in a professional army. This debate made its way into the British colonists in North America.

The American Militia System

With the establishment of the Thirteen Colonies, the militia system was employed as a defensive measure against Native American attacks, as well as a means of civic enforcement. Under British rule, there was no unified American national identity, and the individual colonies were responsible for passing their own laws governing how their militia system operated. Virginia was one of the colonies at the forefront of developing a strong militia system. They required all able-bodied free men, typically from the ages of 16 to 60, to be enrolled in their local militia and maintain their own weapons. This system sufficed in Virginia for over a century, as military needs leaned more towards local defensive measures rather than large-scale offensive campaigns.

However, when the booming fur trade took settlers west of the Appalachian Mountains into the Ohio River Valley, Virginia found itself limited by its existing militia doctrine. Enrollment in the militias was a civic duty rather than a professional calling. Muster rolls and training exercises served as more of a festive gathering of friends and family rather than a formal military function. The ranks were decided by social status and resembled more citizen than soldier.

The Virginia Provincial Troops

The western frontier presented itself as a land of opportunity with the potential of riches for those who could lay claim to the land. Many of Virginia’s upper echelon saw this as a viable business opportunity but also saw the new perils that came with venturing further west. These perils could not be left in the hands of the farmers and businessmen that made up the local militias. This realization led to the formation of the provincial system.

Legislation authorized the formation of these provincial troops and payment to those who voluntarily enlisted. This new system allowed for men to enlist for very specific periods of time, often only a few months. In addition, they were required to serve outside of their county. This transition was made with the intention of creating a more disciplined and professional fighting force, but this vision took time to come to fruition as men often deserted and returned home before their enlistment ended.

The Ohio River Valley

One of the men with a financial interest in the frontier was none other than George Washington. As a young land surveyor with experience in the Ohio River Valley, Washington replaced his deceased brother Lawrence Washington in his county militia and was then appointed as Major in the Virginia Provincial troops. His first task as Major Washington came in 1753 when Governor Robert Dinwiddie tasked him with delivering a letter to the French forces at Fort Le Boeuf notifying them that they were encroaching on territory claimed by Virginia.

Although Major Washington’s mission to deliver the letter was more diplomatic in nature, the response led to his first military action. Washington returned to Governor Dinwiddie with the letter from the French stating they would not be vacating the Ohio River Valley. He was immediately ordered to lead the Virginia Regiment, a provincial militia unit, and return to the frontier with the intention of building forts as a defensive measure.

Flaws in the militia system were clear during Washington’s first true military engagement. Washington was given command with no combat experience, and the new militia system that paid men per enlistment attracted many men of lower social standings and questionable moral judgment. Washington’s inexperience and rash decision making led to the surprise attack of a small detachment of French forces during the Battle of Jumonville Glen. Having received reports of a potential ambush from French troops camped in a concealed location off the road, Washington marched his men directly into their encampment and opened fire. This incident ranks high on the list of causes of the American theater of the Seven Years’ War, known as the French and Indian War.

British Reinforcements

Major George Washington was responsible for some disastrous decision-making in the frontier that forced King George II to send reinforcements from the British Army to expel the French. On paper the mission was simple, General Edward Braddock and 2,000 British soldiers crossed the Atlantic and headed west to secure the French occupied Fort Duquesne. However, the mission proved far more difficult when the stubborn British military doctrine encountered the irregular warfare tactics employed in the frontier.

French and Indigenous forces ambushed Braddock and his men as they approached Fort Duquesne, and the inability to adapt to their environment sealed Braddock’s fate as he was shot through the chest. Despite his prior failures in the frontier, Washington and the Virginia militiamen understood how to best fight back against Indigenous tactics by employing irregular tactics of their own. Provincial militiamen were no strangers to the harsh terrain and bloodcurdling cries of attacking Native American warriors and, despite having a reputation for being undisciplined and unreliable, the citizen soldiers held their ground with more courage than their professional British counterparts.

The militia institution that had formerly been composed of unreliable and ineffective farmers and businessmen was now made up of men with real combat experience. They no longer just met their civic duty to serve, but instead they resembled a professional fighting force, instilling even more confidence among the colonists that the citizen soldier was the best military structure.

The Standing Army Debate

While the British were eventually victorious in the Seven Years’ War, the aftermath of the American campaign became a point of contention between the colonists and the Crown. As the seeds of rebellion were cultivated by iconic revolutionaries like Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, the debate over a standing army surged back to the forefront. Resurfacing the works of prominent Whig writer John Trenchard, pamphlets circulated questioning the formation of a standing army versus leaving the fate of the colonies in the hands of the militia system.

Overwhelmingly, colonists preferred relying on the citizen soldier, citing a fear of a standing army as trading one form of tyranny for another. This argument seems logical, as militias were made up of local familiar faces, and a standing army would be composed of soldiers from all different colonies. Even in their joint quest for independence, the thirteen colonies were far from being a single unified nation. This raised concerns over who was in control of the standing army.

Despite these concerns from the general population, on June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress authorized the formation of the Continental Army. This new standing army was supposed to be composed of ten provincial militia units under enlistments that resembled the arrangements for the Virginia militia.

Citizen Soldiers and the American Revolution

Initial expectations that the American riflemen would win a swift victory fell short as the Revolutionary War dragged on for years. Some men joined in the Continental Army under the command of now General Washington, while others remained in their local militias. When local militias were called on to bolster the numbers of the standing army, their service often was more a liability than an asset. In traditional field battles, the militias were ill-equipped to go toe-to-toe with the British Army, leading many to break ranks early and making it nearly impossible for Continental leadership to rely on their support.

However, while unreliable and ineffective in traditional settings, the citizen soldier excelled on  the western frontier. The lands west of the Appalachians were in a constant threat of violence as relationships with some Indigenous tribes deteriorated and British-sponsored attacks became more prevalent. The Virginia Provincial militias were tasked with preventing any meaningful British-Native alliance forming a western theater of the Revolution. This event would have proven disastrous to the revolutionary cause if Washington had been forced to spread his forces even thinner by detaching men to the West.

Post-Revolution

As the American colonies celebrated the British surrender at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, many colonies transitioned their militias back to their original posture of being a local defensive and civic enforcement measure. However, the work was not over for Virginia and those serving in the frontier. Native Americans in the west were not party to the terms of the British surrender, and the provincial militias remained the first line of defense in the west.

One major change that Virginia implemented after the American Revolution was the system of military ranks. On the advice of General Washington, local militias were restructured to prioritize military experience over social status when appointing officers. This practice received some pushback by local elites but strengthened the overall effectiveness of the militia system.

Forced to adapt during their service in the western frontier, the system of relying on the citizen soldier evolved from local farmers and businessmen fulfilling their civic duties into a system that resembled a part-time professional fighting force. The refined Provincial troop structure pioneered by Virginia to secure the western frontier thus eventually became the framework for the federalized army.

The island of Haiti has long been subjected to foreign control due to its rich natural resources and its perennial political instability. The US occupation of Haiti in the 20th century was militarily successful and became a case study in counterinsurgency for the American military. The local population resented the American presence and clashed with them repeatedly. The lessons learned by American commanders shaped the American counterinsurgency doctrine for decades to come.

The Assassination of Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam & Arrival of US Troops

Ever since it gained independence from France, Haiti had become accustomed to political turmoil, instability, and meddling from foreign powers. As the United States sought to control businesses and governments throughout the region, it set its eyes on Haiti. America had a standard method when it came to controlling countries throughout Latin America: its businesses coopted local elites, worked with the US military to control infrastructure in the state, and set up local militaries or police forces to do America’s bidding.

In March 1915, Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam became president of Haiti. Sam was close to many American officials and industrialists, who sought to use him to gain more access to Haitian sugar and other raw materials. When people throughout the country protested his rule, he crushed the demonstrations, killing 167 people in the process. This only enraged Haitians more, who believed he would sell the country out to foreigners. In July 1915, he hid in the French legation in the capital while crowds of people attacked the building. They forced him out and killed him in public on July 28, 1915.

Sam’s killing horrified American officials, who worried that Americans living in Haiti were at risk. Woodrow Wilson’s administration advocated liberal interventionism and believed in intervening in countries facing upheaval. He was also concerned that Germany would take advantage to control the island and set up submarine bases there. Therefore, he ordered 330 US Marines and Sailors to reinforce a small Marine outpost already on the island.

The Beginning of the Occupation

Rear Admiral William Caperton, commander of the Cruiser Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet, took command of the American detachments sent ashore. Initially, the 12th Marine Expeditionary Company and some sailors landed and proceeded to take control of areas within the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. They faced resistance from Haitian gunmen opposed to Sam’s government. France also sent a detachment of 50 men to protect its legation in the capital.

In the next month, reinforcements arrived to support Caperton’s force in the form of the 1st Marine Brigade, which consisted of the 1st and 2nd Marine Regiments. By August 12, stability had been regained and Caperton began preparations to hold a new round of elections. American officials hoped to have an ostensibly fair election, but one in which their preferred candidate won. When the election took place, it was closely supervised by the United States and Marine units acted as security for polling sites. The preferred US candidate, Sudre Dartigurnave, was elected on August 12 and in the following month, the United States and Haiti signed a treaty to legitimize the presence of American troops in the country.

For the next two decades, American forces were effectively responsible for the administration of Haiti. Instability was rife due to Dartigunarve’s unpopularity and an American attempt to rewrite the Constitution. The Americans lacked the manpower to patrol the entire country. Therefore, they began to train and arm the Haitian Gendarmerie, a force that would assist US troops in their occupation. 2,500 Haitians became part of this new force that gained a reputation for brutality.

Opponents of the Occupation

The US decision to back Sam’s government and to directly intervene after his assassination enraged a large number of Haitians. Rosalvo Bobo, a popular Haitian politician, had led the uprising against Sam’s administration. When the Americans announced elections, he agreed to run against Dartigurnave. His defeat led to his exile from the country, where he could not effectively lead an opposition against the Americans.

Bobo’s armed supporters, known as the Cacos, were a tough fighting force that sought to resist the Americans the same way the Haitian rebels resisted the French during the War of Independence more than a century earlier. Once he was forced into exile, Bobo was replaced by Charlemagne Péralte, who sought to use any means necessary to force the Americans to leave. Péralte became a legend in Haiti for his defiant actions. As several thousand Haitians joined the Cacos, the Marines had a serious fight on their hands to keep control of the country.

The Cacos drew much of their strength from Haitian peasants in the countryside. There has always been a celebrated tradition of fighting foreigners on Haitian soil and the American occupation was no different. However, the Cacos struggled throughout the war due to a lack of training, supplies, and foreign assistance. Contrary to the Wilson administration’s fears, Germany had little desire to get involved in Haiti’s internal affairs. No other country in the region wanted to challenge American control of Haiti. As a result, the Cacos had to fight alone against the Americans and their local collaborators in two wars.

The First Caco War

The Cacos began their war of resistance the moment the Americans began to take control of the island. From 1915 to 1918, US forces fought the rebels in what was called the First Caco War. Marine patrols, backed by naval vessels on Haiti’s inland waterways, assaulted Caco strongholds deep within the island to prevent them from creating safe zones. The Cacos were not armed sufficiently and struggled to hold off the American onslaught.

One of the senior Marine officers involved in hunting the Cacos was Major Smedley Butler. A veteran of Marine operations in Asia and Latin America, Butler believed that the best way for American forces to gain control of the country was to directly strike against principal rebel strongholds. His superior, Littleton Waller, shared that view and ordered his brigade to attack the Cacos. He took his battalion into the countryside outside of Cap-Haitien and began attacking the Cacos. Using local scouts that he trusted, Butler was able to find ways around Caco positions to ambush and attack them.

In November 1915, Butler and his men found the Cacos’ main stronghold of Fort Rivière in northern Haiti. He was able to encircle and launch a surprise attack on the garrison, which never expected the Americans to attack so far away from the cities. Butler’s men slaughtered the defenders and managed to escape with few losses. This action effectively ended the First Caco War (although American patrols continued) and Butler was awarded his second Medal of Honor.

Second Caco War and US Occupation After WWI

It did not take long for the Cacos to rise up again. The Haitian public hated the American-trained Gendarmerie because of their abuses and atrocities. American forces were distracted by the Wilson administration’s decision to enter WWI in 1917, and a lack of local police meant that the Cacos could set up bases again to attack American forces. The use of the corvée system of forced labor prompted many peasants to join the Cacos, and Charlemagne Péralte’s leadership professionalized the rebel force.

After the Gendarmerie lost several battles, American forces resumed their attacks on the Cacos. Finding that the rebels blended in with the local population, Marine forces ruthlessly targeted anyone whom they suspected of assisting the Cacos. Local informers were recruited by the Marines and Gendarmerie to hunt down rebels. Marine columns moved into the countryside to attack them. The brutal killings of Haitians led to a Congressional inquiry in the US but did not slow down American operations. Casualties ran higher than in the first war, but the Americans held the upper hand.

After a failed assault by the Cacos on Port-au-Prince, American forces tracked down Péralte and killed him, crucifying his body to send a message. His successor, Benoît Batraville, continued to lead the revolt but he too was killed in 1920 after also trying to take the capital. Once the Cacos lost their leadership, the revolt fizzled out and the survivors ran to the jungle to be hunted down. This was the last time any Haitians used force to try and end the American occupation.

End of the Occupation and Lessons for the US Military

From 1922 to 1935, the United States ruled Haiti through a mixture of military and civilian officials whose sole aim was to support American economic interests in the country. Strikes and protests continued after the Caco wars and were brutally put down by the Gendarmerie. Despite modest improvements in local infrastructure, the country was still poor and discontent with the American-backed government remained widespread. Nonetheless, every American president after Wilson insisted on maintaining the occupation.

This changed with the election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. As part of his “Good Neighbor” policy, FDR vowed to withdraw US forces from Haiti. Haitian officials gradually took over administration from American officials and the Gendarmerie increased in size. Roosevelt felt that American forces had accomplished everything they could. President Stenio Vincent of Haiti negotiated the withdrawal of US forces during the early 1930s, and the remaining garrison was withdrawn in 1934 though the US continued to fund the Gendarmerie.

The US Marines, having been the principal force on the island, learned a lot from their experiences. Many Marine officers in WWII, such as Alexander Vandegrift, Lewis “Chesty” Puller, Herman Hanneken, and others learned how to fight in the jungle in Haiti. They applied their experience in Haiti when they fought the Japanese in the Solomon Islands. Additionally, the use of such ruthless counterinsurgency methods became part of Marine doctrine. Such tactics reappeared in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The war in Haiti became a classic study of how the US could use a small force to crush a revolt and bring a degree of stability to strategically important countries.

Willa Cather grew up in Nebraska during the late 19th century, largely surrounded by immigrant families living on newly formed homesteads. That childhood experience, surrounded by the sparse, sprawling prairie, had a profound effect on her. When she eventually moved to the East Coast to build her writing career, the Nebraska of her childhood was a constant source of inspiration. Her novels and short stories of pioneer settlement and perseverance still influence how we remember that historical era and capture something essential about what it means to truly love a place.

Willa Cather: A Remarkable Life in a Remarkable Time

Willa Cather was born in her grandmother’s house in Back Creek Valley, Virginia, in 1873. The family was poor, and there were soon many mouths to feed; Willa was ultimately the eldest of seven children. Her parents moved them all to Nebraska when Willa was nine, apparently repelled by the lingering effects of the Civil War in the former Confederate state, but also drawn by the financial allure of homesteading. The Cathers settled in Red Cloud, Nebraska, a frontier town named after a famed Lakota leader, and anchored commercially to the rest of the world via a crucial railroad stop. Cather’s father soon opened a real estate office there.

By all accounts, the Nebraska landscape astonished young Cather. She described encountering the large sweep of plains, with its looming, open sky as a sort of “erasure of personality” and feeling “a good deal as if we had come to the end of everything.” She was also deeply affected by the people she encountered: the languages, food, dress, and other cultural customs of the various immigrant families who were her neighbors.

She became particularly close with one family, the Miners, whose loving and busy home atmosphere, filled with music and cooking and conversation, served as inspiration for the characters in one of her future novels, My Ántonia. Other neighbors, an educated Jewish couple, had an extensive personal library that they allowed Cather to make use of whenever she wished.

As a young girl, Willa bucked tradition and expectation. She cropped her hair and decided she was going to be a doctor, an exceptional career path for a woman at the time. She attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with such intentions and graduated in 1895. But while at school, she began writing for local newspapers, something she loved and soon discovered she had a talent for, and a new career path was born.

After graduating, Willa worked as a journalist and began simultaneously publishing short stories and works of poetry. At 33, she moved to New York City to serve as the managing editor of McClure’s Magazine, one of the nation’s most popular publications of fiction and poetry. It was there that Willa met a hero of hers, writer Sarah Orne Jewett, known for her stories set in the wilderness of Maine. Jewett advised Cather to write about her “own country.”

Cather published her first major novel, O Pioneers!, in 1913, at the age of 40. The novel is set in the late 19th century and focuses on the lifelong efforts of a woman named Alexandra Bergson to cultivate her family’s Nebraska farm. Cather followed O Pioneers! with another prairie novel, My Ántonia, considered by some to be her masterpiece.

At this point in her career, Cather was firmly established as a major American writer and had gained a reputation as a sort of biographer of the Great Plains. She spent the rest of her life writing, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1923, and traveling the world with her closest companion, Edith Lewis. Cather died in 1947 from a stroke.

While she never moved back to the prairies of Nebraska, Cather’s memory of that annihilating landscape, the childhood she had there, and the people she met, consumed her writing for her entire life.

Willa Cather’s stories reflect a key time in American history, the settling of America’s frontier and the explosion of European immigration, but they are largely devoid of references to specific historical events or known figures. Rather, her stories focus on the insulated experiences of everyday life on the prairie, in isolation from the larger forces of the world, much like the characters themselves. Because of this, they read almost like folk stories or creation epics: romantic tales that explain the importance of a place and its people, largely ignoring the more complicated, cruel aspects of the homesteading era.

The Nebraska Prairie, Cather’s Muse

Nebraska is part of the broad expanse of the Great Plains stretching across the middle of the United States, from roughly the Missouri River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west. Largely treeless, the Plains can give one the feeling of being consumed by an endless, unbroken terrain, mirrored above by a vast open sky.

The Great Plains consist of a variety of prairies, steppes, and grasslands, and are home to the American buffalo, one of the country’s most iconic animals. The Plains have been occupied by humans for some 12,000 years, since Paleo-Indians first hunted buffalo and mammoths on its long stretches of land. When Cather’s family moved to Nebraska towards the end of the 19th century, the Great Plains were just starting to be meaningfully settled by Americans and European immigrants.

In Cather’s stories, the land is often hostile to the efforts of those who seek to change it. In O Pioneers!, the Nebraska prairie is described as possessing human-like emotions and a kind of awareness of the new people occupying it.

“… the great fact was the land itself, which seemed to overwhelm the little beginnings of human society that struggled in its sombre wastes. It was from facing this vast hardness that the boy’s mouth had become so bitter; because he felt that men were too weak to make any mark here, that the land wanted to be let alone, to preserve its own fierce strength, its peculiar, savage kind of beauty, its uninterrupted mournfulness.” 

As Cather’s story goes on, the land does finally relent to human efforts, as long as it’s the right kind of human. Alexandra Bergson, the hero of the story if there is one, is the daughter of a Swedish immigrant who died before he was able to make his homestead profitable. When Alexandra inherits it, the land flourishes under her care and creativity. Her success seems to stem from her deep love and understanding of the place, her ability to see promise and value where others can’t. In Cather’s telling, Alexandra’s efforts to farm her land become almost a biblical kind of event.

“For the first time, perhaps, since that land emerged from the waters of geologic ages, a human face was set toward it with love and yearning. It seemed beautiful to her, rich and strong and glorious … Then the Genius of the Divide, the great, free spirit which breathes across it, must have bent lower than it ever bent to a human will before.”

Alexandra is written as an individual talent but also as representative of the collective spirit of a newer generation. It is not just her land that is transformed but also that of her neighbors, who follow her lead in creating orderly, bountiful fields, orchards, and rangelands. In Cather’s telling, this deep love for nature and the land is itself a form of patriotism. One of the final passages of the book includes this reflection from Alexandra, surely speaking the personal beliefs of the author who created her:

“The land belongs to the future, Carl; that’s the way it seems to me. How many of the names on the county clerk’s plat will be there in fifty years? … We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it for a little while.” 

The History Behind Willa Cather’s Stories

What is the larger historical context of Willa Cather’s beloved prairie, her idealized pioneers? What drove them to the seemingly inhospitable Nebraska, and who occupied it before them?

The history of Nebraska is a history of American western expansion in microcosm. The land on which Red Cloud, Nebraska, was built was the traditional hunting grounds of the Indigenous Pawnee people, who had lived there for centuries along the Platte River, in domed lodges made of timber and earth, farming crops and hunting buffalo.

The region was first claimed by explorers for France in 1682, and over the next hundred years or so, Europeans continued to explore and establish trade posts in the area. In 1803, France sold the Nebraska territory to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase.

While most early travelers passing through the Great Plains believed the land had little value, that didn’t stop the U.S. government from seeking control. In 1833, the Pawnee tribe signed a treaty with the U.S., surrendering all their land south of the Platte River. Such “treaties” were often signed under coercion; the Pawnee may not have explicitly believed they were giving up the right to live on their land.

In 1854, the Nebraska Territory was formally created as part of the United States, and as such, travelers could legally settle there. Not many did at first, at least not compared to those settling further west, in the gold fields of California and the fertile valleys of the Oregon Territory. Those who did make Nebraska their home largely made their living by selling supplies to the wagon trains passing through on their way to those more popular destinations.

But then, in 1869, the railroad came, connecting Nebraska to the rest of the country. This made it much easier for people to travel to the state, and for those already there to start sending and receiving goods. Suddenly Nebraska was more economically viable.

Congress had also recently passed the monumental Homestead Act of 1862, which provided huge incentives for people to move into the Great Plains region. It stipulated that any adult citizen, or intended citizen, could claim 160 acres in the region so long as they committed to living on the land for five years with the intention of improving or cultivating it.

The act also stipulated that anyone could apply for the program, so long as they had never taken up arms against the U.S. and could be considered the head of their household. This meant that women who were single, widowed, or divorced could claim a stake of land for themselves, and thousands of them did so. Freed slaves and immigrants could also claim land under the act, but Native Americans were effectively excluded because they were not recognized as U.S. citizens at the time. No matter who they were, the majority of those who filed claims and moved west did so with a large family; many hands were needed to do the endless chores required to run a farmstead.

As a result, in the 1870s and 80s an influx of people rushed into Nebraska, including Willa Cather’s family. Many came from America’s Eastern states, but a good number were European immigrants, largely from Germany and Scandinavia. Once in Nebraska, these immigrants often clustered into ethnic communities, living amongst other people from their homelands.

Cather documents these cultural differences in her books, devoting significant text to describing domestic scenes: the way a room is decorated, a dish cooked, torn clothes mended. Embedded in these scenes are references to traditions, customs, and habits associated with different types of immigrants. A Bohemian wife makes strudel with cream for her visitors, and later dresses up as an old country fortune teller at the local state fair. It is said that Bohemians like to drink beer when they thrash grain, but Norwegians do not. The local laundry in town is run by the Danish. The store nearby stocks food that appeals to German and Scandinavian palates: rye bread, smoked fish, strong imported cheeses. These small details give readers a peek into the real lives and histories behind Cather’s fiction.

The Faces of Cather’s Pioneers

My Ántonia touches on many of the same themes as O Pioneers!. It is narrated by an orphan, Jim Burden, who moves to his grandparents’ Nebraska homestead at age 10. Soon after arriving, he befriends his neighbor, Antonia Shimerda, a young girl whose family recently moved to the prairie from Bohemia (based on Cather’s real childhood friend, Anna Pavelka). Jim teaches Antonia English, and she amuses Jim with stories about her old life in Bohemia. Together, they explore their surroundings, battle rattlesnakes, investigate prairie dog towns, and experience profound loss and tragedy.

Cather, writing from Jim’s adult perspective, describes their childhood days together in typically epic terms, with the land a searing part of his memories:

“All those fall afternoons were the same, but I never got used to them. As far as we could see, the miles of copper-red grass were drenched in sunlight that was stronger and fiercer than at any other time of the day … The whole prairie was like the bush that burned with fire and was not consumed. That hour always had the exultation of victory, of triumphant ending, like a hero’s death.” 

Jim ultimately leaves Nebraska while Antonia remains on the prairie, marrying and raising ten children on her own bustling farmstead. Years pass, and when Jim visits Nebraska again on a passing trip, he reunites with Antonia, noting how rooted and at home she seems, like her spirit has become part of the landscape itself.

Both O Pioneers! and My Ántonia are deeply nostalgic works, focused on capturing the magic and importance of childhood. Cather’s stories seem to suggest that in order to fully understand and appreciate the prairie, a person has to have seen it first as a child, when they are impressionable and new. Their heroes’ journey typically includes a type of merging of their identity with the land itself. Consider this musing from Alexandra in O Pioneers!:

“She had never known before how much the country meant to her… She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things that crooned or buzzed in the sun. Under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring.” 

Cather spotlights female versions of the pioneer character, women whose very success on the prairie is tied to their ability to push back against traditional expectations. It is because they think and behave outside the realm of what’s standard that they excel. The prairie was made for these types of characters: rogues, misfits, creative thinkers. But it is also too simplistic to view these novels as straightforward works of feminism. Cather herself was apparently ambivalent about the suffrage movement, which was reaching a fever pitch when she wrote these works, and her stories are not without the traditional archetypes of fallen women.

Certainly there is also a generational element in how Cather depicts her pioneers. Often, the older family members are the ones unable to make peace with this new place, too attached to the friends and memories left behind. In O Pioneers!, Alexandra’s father dies at 46, ill from trying so hard to make the land work. He greets death as a chance to escape the constant devastation.

“He was ready to give up, he felt. He did not know how it had come about, but he was quite willing to go deep under his fields and rest, where the plow could not find him. He was tired of making mistakes. He was content to leave the tangle to other hands.” 

The same is true for Antonia’s father, who becomes so miserable over his family’s poverty and homesick for Bohemia that he commits suicide. Both Alexandra and Antonia are able to thrive in a way their fathers could not, and both come to love the prairie for a beauty their fathers never saw. And when these heroines of the prairie die themselves, they are not deaths of defeat, but a type of final reunion with the land, as described in these concluding lines from O Pioneers!: 

“ Fortunate country, that is one day to receive hearts like Alexandra’s into its bosom, to give them out again in the yellow wheat, in the rustling corn, in the shining eyes of youth!”

Cather’s Enduring Grip

The image of the American pioneer as related by Willa Cather is part of an ongoing romantic narrative of that period of history—hardy, rugged individuals connected in some spiritual harmony with the land, all grit and determination. Cather’s stories, while occasionally dismissed as overly sentimental, do capture some specific truths about that era—the value and uniqueness of the Great Plains, the diversity of communities that settled there, and the unspeakable hardships they often had to endure.

Cather was writing her pioneer stories at a time when the country at large was exerting fresh energy into valuing and protecting its wild spaces. A powerful progressive movement was pushing the government to do more to protect the environment from the ravages of the Industrial Age. The Forest Service was established in 1905 under President Theodore Roosevelt, who also doubled the number of national parks during his presidency. The health of waterways, soils, forests, and other natural spaces began being studied. Stories like Cather’s helped the nation appreciate not just the economic importance of its landscape, but its historic, poetic importance as well.

Cather’s stories, her testaments of affection for the land, are written all over Nebraska’s modern landscape. In her hometown of Red Cloud, visitors can tour Cather’s childhood home, stop by the National Willa Cather Center, and then, five miles south of town, enjoy the quiet beauty of the Willa Cather Memorial Prairie, a 612-acre plot of never-been-plowed, soft-rolling, seemingly endless plain.

In just five days in 1967, a Palo Alto high school transformed from a progressive, liberal society into a hotbed of fascism. It seemed an experiment by 25-year-old teacher Ron Jones had gone horribly wrong, but it had, in fact, gone horribly right.

How did the Third Wave unfold and what shocking lessons did it leave in its wake?

The Spark at Cubberley High School

On a spring day in 1967, a young teacher, Ron Jones, at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California, was teaching a 10th-grade class about the Holocaust. While discussing the appeal of Nazism and how the German people could have accepted it so easily, Ron decided to enact an experiment to teach the lesson in a way that would never be forgotten. Instead of using textbooks, the students themselves would become the lesson.

And so in the first week of April, the experiment began, but what Ron had intended to be a single-day experiment turned into almost the whole school week. 

The First Days of Totalitarian Transformation

The students came into class on Monday, and Ron began by enforcing strict authoritarian control. He wrote “Strength Through Discipline” on the board and had the students sit at attention, observing correct posture. He ordered that the students address him as “Mr. Jones” at all times and to stand up when they asked questions in class. 

The students followed the rules eagerly, and on the second day, Ron decided to continue the experiment. He wrote “Strength Through Community” on the board and created a salute which involved a cupped right hand held close to the shoulder. Students in the class were commanded to salute each other inside and outside of the classroom. 

They were also given tasks such as creating logos and banners, while others were assigned gatekeeping duties, preventing non-members from entering the classroom. The idea of exclusivity became very apparent, and students from outside the class began asking if they could join. 

The Movement Spirals out of Control

On the third day, students from other classes began cutting class to join the Third Wave— a name derived from surfing culture, which observed that the third wave in a series was often the strongest. As a representation of this, the logo of the movement was that of a wave.

Wednesday was the day of “Strength Through Action” and saw the issuing of membership cards, and membership rose rapidly to 200 students. Ron encouraged students to report on other members who failed to observe the rules, and noted how eagerly students took up this duty. One student even became Ron’s bodyguard. 

By the fourth day, it had become apparent that the movement was blossoming out of Ron’s immediate control, and he felt himself becoming unable to enforce his own agency, not simply playing the part of a dictator, but actually becoming one. The experiment had to end for everyone’s safety. One student’s father, who had fought in World War II and spent time in a German prisoner of war camp, heard about what was happening, lost control, and broke into the classroom on Wednesday evening, ransacking it.

Ron spoke about “Strength Through Pride” on Thursday and announced that the Third Wave was not localized, but part of a national movement to steer the country’s politics. At noon on Friday, there would be a rally at which a presidential candidate would be announced via a televised service. 

The Climactic Reveal and Immediate Aftermath

The day of the rally was the climactic finale of the Third Wave, but the students did not know it yet. Ron had convinced some of his friends to pose as reporters and photographers to make the situation look authentic. Banners hung across the auditorium, and every seat was filled. Students from all persuasions were there, from loners to the pseudo-hip to the bikers. Everyone wanted to be part of it. 

Chants of “Strength Through Discipline” filled the air as the rally started. Then Ron switched on a television tuned to dead air. Anxious silence filled the space for several minutes before one student stood up, unable to take the wait, and shouted, “There isn’t any leader, is there?”

Ron broke the silence and explained the experiment, stating that the students were no better or worse than the Germans who had accepted Nazism. He then played a film on the Third Reich, which he introduced with the words, “How far would you have gone? Let me show you your future.”

Ron Jones explained what had happened and apologized to his students, sharing in the remorse that they felt for becoming what they thought couldn’t happen to them. Students openly wept and embraced each other, while others, who had assumed it was an experiment, breathed sighs of relief.

The Legacy of the Third Wave Experiment in Media

The Events of the Third Wave Experiment at Cubberley High went on to inspire literature and other media adaptations. Among these were the 1981 made-for-TV movie “The Wave,” a German adaptation in 2008 called “Die Welle” (The Wave), and a 2010 documentary entitled “Lesson Plan.” Ron Jones even turned the story into a musical stage production. The most modern interpretation is the German Netflix miniseries “Wir sind die Welle,” (We Are the Wave), which aired in 2019. 

As a study of human psychology, the Third Wave stands alongside other terrifying examples such as the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Shock Experiment, each showcasing the dangerous elements of human beings and our susceptibility to compliance. 

Fun fact: Scientist Michio Kaku attended Cubberley High School, where he graduated in 1964 (three years before the Third Wave experiment). During his time there, he built a particle accelerator for the school science fair!

The Pearl Harbor attacks on December 7, 1941 shocked the American people. Within days, Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Husband Kimmel was stripped of his command and blamed for his failure to prepare for the attack. Kimmel later claimed that he was made to take the fall by the federal government, and official files emerged suggesting that Washington withheld important information about threats to Pearl Harbor from Kimmel. Who was right?

The Rise and Fall of Admiral Kimmel

Born in Kentucky in 1882, Husband Kimmel was a Naval Academy graduate who swiftly rose through the ranks due to his astute attention to detail and his ability to impress his superiors. Just prior to WWI, he served as an adviser to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, who was none other than Franklin Roosevelt. When the United States entered the war in 1917, he transferred to a surface warship as a gunnery officer and continued to gain experience on several ships, including the battleship USS New York.

In 1937, he managed to secure his first stars, becoming Rear Admiral and the senior Budget Officer for the Navy Department. Kimmel was analytical and approachable, with both men under him and overseeing him impressed by his demeanor and skills. This resulted in him becoming the commander of all the cruisers in the Pacific Fleet, based out of Hawaii. When Admiral James Richardson was removed from command for protesting the Fleet’s move to Pearl Harbor, Kimmel leapfrogged several other admirals to become the commander of the fleet with four-star rank in February 1941.

Upon taking command, he began to prepare the fleet for war. Task forces were reorganized to have different ship types, instead of squadrons only having one type of vessel. Target practice was revamped and ships were ordered to spend more time at sea. Islands further west were fortified, like Midway Atoll and Wake Island. All the while, he battled Washington bureaucracy, which insisted on taking a lot of his ships from him and transferring them to the Atlantic Fleet. As storm clouds gathered, he was determined to have his men prepared for the worst.

Why Washington Kept the Pacific Fleet in the Dark

It is often said that surprise attacks are not intelligence failures as much as policy failures. Ample evidence existed to show that Washington received information about Japanese interest in Pearl Harbor. However, the War and Navy Departments failed to ensure that Admiral Kimmel and his subordinates were aware of the extent of Japan’s military buildup or the intercepted messages that exposed Japanese intentions. Thanks to a mix of pride and paranoia, Admiral Harold Stark (Chief of Naval Operations) and General George Marshall (Army Chief of Staff) did not provide a full intelligence picture to Admiral Kimmel.

Japanese agents who were known to be active in Hawaii routinely transmitted messages to their handlers back in Tokyo. This included detailed observations of ship movements, locations of different squadrons on Oahu’s airfields, and other vital information. Additionally, Japanese transmissions between diplomats in Washington and officials in Tokyo revealed increasing anger over American policy. None of this was shared with Kimmel with any sense of urgency.

American spies and cryptographers in Washington had access to tools and information that Station HYPO in Oahu didn’t have until after the attacks. Additionally, intelligence staff in Pearl Harbor had a macrolevel view of the Pacific in which they could see the full extent of Japanese planning. The officers in Hawaii focused more on Japanese tactical developments and did not get the full picture. Admiral Kimmel believed an attack was possible, but he lacked the information to develop a full battle plan.

The Failure of Long-Range Reconnaissance

One shortage that plagued the Pacific Fleet in 1941 was the lack of long-range patrol aircraft. Despite requests to Washington by Admiral Kimmel and his staff, Pearl Harbor did not receive sufficient aircraft to maintain a 360° search radius. On December 7, 68 PBY Catalina seaplanes were in Oahu and most were grounded. Because American officials had no idea that the Japanese carrier strike group Kido Butai was actively steaming towards Hawaii, they did not send up planes to monitor its movements. Oahu’s radar stations also could not reach far enough out to identify the launch point for Japan’s carrier aircraft.

Admiral Kimmel also sent his carriers to ferry planes to islands west and south of Oahu. To assist them, some of the land-borne PBYs were assigned to patrol near the carrier groups. This was far away from the Kido Butai’s heading, which was north of Pearl Harbor. Had Washington agreed to provide more reconnaissance aircraft to Kimmel, he could have used them to cover gaps in his search radius. The Americans did not detect the approach of the Japanese fleet because Admiral Chuichi Nagumo ordered his ships to maintain radio silence.

One of the main elements of the American war plan in the event of a Japanese declaration of war was to launch as many long-range planes as possible to target any Japanese bases in range. Kimmel and his subordinates were afraid that using the PBYs too often could leave them unprepared to launch the airstrikes and left most of the planes on the ground. Pearl Harbor was left ill-prepared for the coming onslaught on the morning of December 7.

The Roberts Commission Findings

On December 18, 1941, President Roosevelt convened an inquiry into the failures to prepare for the attack. It was chaired by Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts and had four other members who were retired military brass. In January 1942, the Commission passed its findings on to the White House after a cursory investigation. These findings proved to be very contentious and, despite the Administration’s intentions, did not bury the issue of culpability. On the contrary, it set in motion years of debate over who bore principal responsibility for the American failure to prepare for the attack.

Roberts and his commission argued that Admiral Kimmel and his army counterpart, General Walter Short, were negligent regarding Pearl Harbor’s defenses and failed to act on serious intelligence identifying the threat posed by Japan’s carrier group. One of the most controversial claims was that Washington did not hold back on sharing enough information to predict Japanese intentions. Due to the classified nature of the cryptographic project codenamed Magic, the report could not discuss American cryptography, nor could it discuss high-level decision-making in Washington before the attacks.

Admiral Kimmel, who had been relieved of command and demoted, testified before the commission but received a hostile reception. It became clear that administration officials had set up the commission to absolve themselves of blame. After the report went to the White House, Kimmel’s request to be reinstated to his command was refused, leaving him in limbo until another investigation could take place.

New Evidence Regarding Magic Intercepts

In 1944, more information surfaced that suggested that Washington had not fully warned Kimmel about the dangers of a Japanese attack. A naval court of inquiry revealed that the federal government knew about a cable from Tokyo to a Japanese spy ring asking for specific ship locations in the harbor. This had not been shared with Kimmel. Additional decrypts acknowledged that the Japanese were planning on giving up on negotiations. This court of inquiry not only exonerated Admiral Kimmel, it also pinned the blame on Admiral Stark for not properly warning the Pacific Fleet.

In 1945-1946, a Joint Congressional Committee uncovered further evidence pointing to Washington’s failure to inform the Pacific Fleet. Right before the attacks began, General George Marshall tried to warn the fleet that a Japanese attack was very likely. However, he sent the message via a commercial telegram which only reached Pacific Fleet headquarters while the bombs were dropping, even though Marshall had a specialized telephone that could enable him to speak with Kimmel securely. When the Committee published its full report in 1946, it severely undermined the initial claim that Kimmel and General Short had been negligent in their duties.

One of the main reasons that the initial investigation could not publicize so much information regarding Allied intelligence of Japanese plans was that Magic had not been declassified yet. Magic was a US signals intelligence program that cracked Japanese codes. Initially, only diplomatic ciphers had been cracked; military codes would be broken later in the war. However, the Americans still had significant information warning that an attack was very likely. Because Kimmel was not aware of the full extent of American codebreaking activities, he was kept out of the loop regarding detailed intelligence sharing.

The Decades-Long Fight for Exoneration

Notwithstanding the findings of this report, Kimmel still struggled to clear his name in the eyes of the public. In the decades after the war, he insisted that the Navy officially acknowledge that it failed him and scapegoated him. In 1955, he wrote a memoir arguing that, had he been given more information, he would not have had the fleet sitting at anchor unprotected. Notwithstanding the revelations made in 1946, the Navy refused to acknowledge its failures. He died in 1968, leading his family to take up the mantle of pushing for accountability.

The admiral’s surviving sons Edward and Thomas Kimmel pushed hard for an apology from the Navy. They, together with grandson Thomas Jr., went to Congress, the Department of Defense, and other governmental bodies to insist on the record being corrected. They had a breakthrough in 1999 when the Senate voted to formally exonerate Kimmel and posthumously restore him to his four-star rank. Provisions were made in an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act 2001, but neither the Department of Defense nor successive presidential administrations agreed to do so.

The Pentagon insisted that, while information sharing should have been done more efficiently, Admiral Kimmel still bore responsibility for the disaster as fleet commander. To this day, while most historians believe that he was scapegoated, the military still insists that he was responsible for the security failures. The debate over Admiral Kimmel’s culpability is the longest-running dispute regarding military rank in American history.

Ida B. Wells was one of the first outspoken advocates for racial and gender equality. Born into slavery, she became a journalist and lecturer on a variety of equality issues in America. From challenging segregation laws and gender inequality, to exposing the horrors of lynching, Wells never backed down from her beliefs. She played a key role in both the early Civil Rights and women’s suffrage movements. Despite not having the name recognition of Malcolm X or Martin Luther King Jr., Wells laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.

Early Life

Ida B. Wells was born in 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in the midst of the American Civil War. Her parents, James and Lizzie Wells, were both enslaved at the time of her birth to Spires Boling, a prominent architect of the Antebellum Era. Although freed in 1862 by the Emancipation Proclamation, Ida and her parents would remain the property of Bolling until the conclusion of the American Civil War.

Raised during Reconstruction, Ida grew up in a household that valued education, activism, and faith. Her father was active in local politics for the Republican Party and helped start Shaw University (now Rust College), where Ida would receive her early education. In 1878, Memphis, Tennessee and the surrounding cities, including Holly Springs, were struck by a deadly bout of Yellow Fever. Highly contagious, the 1878 Yellow Fever epidemic decimated many families in the area, including the Wells family. Earlier that year, Ida was away visiting family outside of the city. When she returned, she found that her parents and one brother had perished.

At just 16 years old, Ida stepped up to care for her five remaining siblings, becoming a schoolteacher to support them. The lessons taught to Wells by her parents remained long after their deaths. She began challenging injustice wherever she saw it, particularly in the segregated schools she worked in, bringing to light the disparity between white and Black institutions. In 1883, following the death of Wells’ grandmother, she and her two youngest siblings moved to Memphis, Tennessee. These early years, marked with tragedy, struggle, and injustice, shaped the future advocacy of one of the first Civil Rights advocates.

1887 Court Case: Fighting Segregation

A year after moving to Memphis, in 1884, while traveling by train, Ida B. Wells was asked by the conductor to give up her first-class seat and move to a crowded car reserved for Black passengers. Wells had paid for her ticket and refused to move.

The conductor and two other men forcibly removed her from the car, but not without a fight. A year prior, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the 1875 Civil Rights Act was unconstitutional, legalizing segregation on public transit. Despite not having a legal basis for the injustice shown toward her, Wells sued the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, the owners of the train car on which she was traveling,  for discrimination. In 1887, she won the case in a lower court and was awarded $500 in damages. A sum equal to just over $16,000 today.

Though the decision was later overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court, the fight launched Wells into the national spotlight. It also marked a turning point in her life. She began writing about her experiences and the broader injustices Black Americans faced during the era of Jim Crow. Her articles appeared in newspapers around the country, and she became one of the first prominent Black female journalists in US history. Although the case did not end in Wells’s favor, it was a watershed moment in her life, beginning her fight for racial, gender, and economic equality.

Anti-Lynching Campaign

In 1892, Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Henry Stewart were lynched in Memphis, Tennessee. Lynchings occurred for a variety of reasons during the age of Jim Crow. The root cause, however, was an apparent breaking of the South’s de facto laws of segregation. The murders of Moss, McDowell, and Stewart occurred over business competition.

Moss opened his People’s Grocery in Memphis to offer a shopping alternative for African Americans and Chinese. White grocery owners took offense at the competition that People’s Grocery created. On March 2, Armour Harris, a young Black man, offered a marbles game outside of Moss’s grocery.  After what was referred to as a tense game, Cornelius Hurst, a white male, and Harris partook in a physical altercation. Calvin McDowell and Henry Stewart, employees of the grocery, intervene on behalf of Harris. William Russell Barrett, the proprietor of Barrett’s Grocery, stationed across the street, arrived the following day with a sheriff’s deputy over the previous day’s incident. After failing to arrest Moss, Calvin, and McDowell, Barrett attacked McDowell. Following the fight, McDowell was arrested but later released.

The local white population was angered over McDowell’s release and decided to take justice into their own hands. In the early morning hours of March 9, Moss Calvin and McDowell were kidnapped by 75 white supremacists and lynched. Moss’s last words were reportedly “tell my people to go west, there is no justice here.” 

The event devastated Wells. The next day, she reiterated Moss’s statement, declaring in Free Speech and Headlight that African Americans should leave Memphis for northern cities like Chicago and Detroit. She began investigating lynchings across the South, uncovering the real reasons behind them, most of which had nothing to do with criminal acts, as was often claimed. Her reporting revealed that many victims were targeted for being successful, for resisting white supremacy, or for no reason at all.

Wells published her findings in a pamphlet titled Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. In response, an angry mob destroyed her newspaper office in Memphis. Wells was away at the time, likely sparing her life. Friends warned her not to return, but Wells began a nationwide campaign bringing attention to the murders of Blacks in the South. Over the course of ten years, Wells documented the lynchings of 959 people. Most of what is known today about race-related murders before 1930 comes from the steadfast dedication of Ida B. Wells.

The Continued Fight for Civil Rights

After choosing not to return to Memphis at the urging of her friends, Wells moved to Chicago. Having taken her anti-lynching campaign nationwide, in 1893, she traveled to England to speak out about racial violence in America. Wells understood the power of international attention. 50 years prior, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin had drawn international acclaim and strengthened the abolitionist movement worldwide.

Wells knew that if she could make the rest of the world see what was happening in the South, it might force politicians to enforce change. Her travels helped establish her as a global voice in the fight for human rights.

More Than Just Race: The Fight for Gender Equality

Ida B. Wells was more than just a journalist—she was a force in the women’s suffrage movement, too. But her experience wasn’t easy. Many white suffragists were uncomfortable with her outspoken activism, mainly her claim that African American women should be included in the suffrage movement.

Forced out of many existing suffrage organizations, she co-founded the Alpha Suffrage Club in 1913, the first Black women’s suffrage organization in Chicago. Later that year, Wells and the ASC participated in the National Suffrage Parade in Washington, D.C. When told she would need to march in the back to avoid upsetting white participants, Wells refused. As the parade began, she waited amongst the crowd, then stepped into line with her white peers. Her role in the suffrage movement helped ensure that the voices of Black women were included in the fight for the vote.

Legacy

Ida B. Wells passed away in 1931 of kidney disease, but her legacy continues to influence generations of activists. In 2020, she was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her work in journalism, finally receiving the national recognition that eluded her during her lifetime due to her race and gender. Today, schools, streets, and organizations are named in her honor, and monuments to her dot many southern cities. Two museums in Holly Springs and Chicago tell the remarkable story of her life and advocacy. Her story is a reminder that one voice can change the world.

Robert Johnson is one of the most influential, albeit mysterious, figures in American music. His short life led to the lore surrounding it. Known for his masterful guitar skills, soulful voice, and dark, almost morbid lyrics, Johnson recorded just 29 songs before his death at age 27. Yet those songs laid the foundation for modern blues, which gave way to rock music. His short life and the lack of information on him mean that legend is the primary driver of his story. His impact on music, however, is widespread and everlasting.

Early Life

Robert Johnson was born in 1911 in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, though he spent most of his life in the Delta region, the birthplace of the blues. His early years were tough. He was born out of wedlock, and his father disappeared soon after. His mother worked as a sharecropper and moved from town to town, scraping by in a South still ruled by Jim Crow laws. Johnson’s education was nearly non-existent, common of the African American experience at the time.

Johnson, however, did have an ear for music. He started with the harmonica, but soon turned to the guitar. He was drawn to the blues, especially the styles of Son House and Charley Patton, who were known for melodic music with emotional lyrics, and spent hours watching older musicians play at Dockery Plantation in Sunflower County, Mississippi. As Johnson entered into early adulthood, he migrated from listening to blues on the plantation to regularly attending juke joints.

Juke joints were born out of necessity. The intense life of sharecropping meant that when it came time to celebrate the end of the work week, African Americans searched for their very own reprieve. Segregation in the South dictated that African Americans could not attend white bars or music clubs, so juke joints were created to provide that need to the Black community.

These clubs are where Johnson spent every free moment of his life as a young adult. Eager to learn, Johnson asked for lessons from his idols like Son House. The blues musicians taught Johnson, but all noted that while he had the voice for blues, his talents on the guitar left much to be desired.

However, soon, something changed. After disappearing for several months, Johnson returned, having mastered the blues guitar. His fingers moved at a speed no one had seen, and his voice too changed into a much deeper, gravely tone. People were shocked by the transformation. In the Mississippi Delta, where Christianity ran deep, there could be only one explanation for what they had witnessed.

Birth of the Legend: Johnson’s Vanishing and Return

Of all the stories surrounding Robert Johnson, the most famous is the tale of the crossroads. According to legend, Johnson went to a remote intersection somewhere in Mississippi, likely near the intersecting highways at Dockery Plantation, and made a pact with the Devil. In exchange for his soul, Johnson was transformed into the best blues musician who ever lived.

The legend explained two major events in Johnson’s story. When Johnson disappeared without a trace for an extended period of time from Clarksdale in the early 1930s, he wasn’t considered to be a musician. But when he came back, his sound was polished, eerie, and entirely new. Music historians state that Johnson’s gift was the ability to make one guitar sound like two, bending notes and using slide techniques that no one had done before him.

Whether the crossroads story was created by Johnson himself or by those in the town, Johnson didn’t do much to deny it. His songs—like Me and the Devil Blues and Cross Road Blues—only added to the speculation that he had done the unthinkable for fame.

A Short Recording Era

Despite his lasting influence on music history, Robert Johnson’s entire recorded output consists of just 29 songs. His entire discography was recorded during two sessions in makeshift studios—one in San Antonio in 1936 and another in Dallas in 1937. He often sat alone on a stool, no band behind him providing additional instrumentation, singing and playing his acoustic guitar into a microphone. Yet, what came out of those sessions shaped music for the next century.

Songs like Sweet Home Chicago, Love in Vain, and Hellhound on My Trail became blueprints for blues, rock, and even soul. His version of blues music was full of longing, pain, and a deep sense of urgency. The lyrics centered around someone who was always in a hurry to get nowhere fast. Johnson’s guitar work blended rhythm and lead playing in ways that the industry would not see again until the 1960s with Jimmy Hendrix.

Though his records didn’t sell widely at the time, they spread through word of mouth, passed between musicians and fans. It wasn’t until decades later, during the blues revival of the 1960s, that Johnson truly became a legend. Artists like Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and Bob Dylan would cite Johnson as a direct influence on their style.

Life on the Road

Robert Johnson didn’t live the kind of life that left a paper trail. Much of what is known about him comes from word of mouth. In fact, there are only four known and verified photos of the famous blues musician. He didn’t have a fixed address or a steady job. Instead, he lived on the road, moving from town to town across Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas, playing in juke joints, street corners, and plantation parties. He rarely stayed in one place for long.

Johnson’s charm, looks, and guitar skills made him popular with women, but also got him into trouble. He had a habit of getting involved with married women, something that didn’t sit well with the conservative South of the 1930s. He also drank heavily, sometimes disappearing for days at a time, missing shows and important events. Friends described him as quiet, private, and always moving. His music reflected the lifestyle he lived, capturing the soul of a man who was never truly at home anywhere.

An Early Death

Robert Johnson died in 1938 at the age of 27, and the circumstances of his death are still debated. The most widely accepted theory is that he was poisoned—likely by the jealous husband of a woman he had been involved with while on the road.

Witnesses said he fell ill after drinking from an open whiskey bottle at a juke joint near Greenwood, Mississippi. It was known by the Black community in Greenwood that Johnson was having an affair with the local juke joint owner’s wife. He died in agony, and no doctor was present to record the cause of death.

There is no official autopsy, no death certificate with clear details pertaining to his cause of death, just fragments of stories from those who were there. Some believe he may have had congenital syphilis, due to the strange nature he demonstrated in the days leading up to his death, while others stick with the poisoning theory.

He was buried in an unmarked grave, and the exact location is still unknown. There are multiple grave sites around the city of Greenwood claiming to be the final resting place of Johnson. His early passing and the peculiar circumstances of his death only deepened the devil at the crossroads legend. He became one of the first members of the so-called “27 Club,” a group of musicians who died at the age of 27. Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, and Mac Miller—also members—are said to have sold their souls to the devil in return for fame. Like Johnson, these musicians met their fate at the same age.

Legacy

Though he never knew fame during his lifetime, Robert Johnson’s music became gospel to rock and blues musicians decades later. In the 1960s, during the blues revival in Britain and America, Johnson’s songs were rediscovered and covered by some of the biggest names in rock history. The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Cream, and Bob Dylan all credited Johnson as a direct influence. Eric Clapton once called him “the most important blues singer that ever lived.”

Johnson’s raw emotion, intricate guitar work, and haunting lyrics laid the groundwork for electric blues and early rock ‘n’ roll. His music became a rite of passage for guitarists trying to understand the roots of their craft and learning the soul behind the lyrics. Johnson’s music was about storytelling, pain, power, and survival. If one believes the legend, the devil has Johnson’s soul, but his spirit has lived on in nearly every generation of American music since.